


A better life

by Petra



Category: DCU (Comics), Doctor Who
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Timfinity Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-14
Updated: 2007-10-14
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8911285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: When Tim Drake was four years old, the man who would change his life gave him a hug. Or, "The Doctor needs a Companion."





	

When Tim Drake was four years old, the man who would change his life gave him a hug, then set him on the ground and said, "Go on back to your mum, and mind you keep away from Autons from now on." Tim stared after him as he went back into his blue telephone booth.

He heard the sound in his dreams until he was nine and learned how to hack the UNIT database, when he found the soundfile for real and knew exactly who had snatched him away from the should-have-been-impossible GI Joes on the march.

Tim's parents were away when he took himself to New York to tour the United Nations headquarters, and he hid the signed copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man when he got home. They wouldn't have known the name Lethbridge-Stewart anyway.

He hid the copies of the files on the Doctor even more carefully.

Whenever anyone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he told them, "An archaeologist, like my father." They smiled and patted him on the head until he was too old for that, and only one person ever asked him which civilization he wanted to study.

He'd learned enough about the Mayans to make a good lie. It wouldn't have been appropriate to tell Mrs. Linden he was most interested in the native culture of Gallifrey.

The things Tim learned from the UNIT files made him worry about the Doctor so much that he tried to enlist some kind of help, never mind that the Doctor was an interstellar traveler some uncountable number of centuries old.

It cost Tim fifteen dollars in calling cards and ten hours in firewall infiltration to get the phone number for Torchwood headquarters, and even then he'd had to get past Mr. Jones, who hadn't wanted to let him speak to anyone at all.

Another two hours, and he had Jack Harkness's direct line.

"The Doctor needs you," he'd said, immediately, when Harkness picked up.

He'd meant to say something more intelligent, but he was too nervous about being hung up on to let a chance go by.

"How the hell do you know a thing like that?" Harkness asked, his voice sharp and entirely at odds with the records of his charm in UNIT's files.

"He needs somebody," Tim said, temporizing.

"Who is this?" Harkness demanded. "What kind of nonsense are you trying to pull?"

Tim sighed. "Please."

"I haven't seen the Doctor in a century." Harkness laughed, and it sounded painful. "If he wants me, he knows where to find me. Don't call back." He hung up.

The second day the Autons went walking in the streets of Gotham, Tim was more alert than he had ever been in his life. It took him two hours to find the TARDIS, parked in a glen in Robinson Park. When he found it, he sat outside it and waited.

For four hours.

"What are you doing here?" asked a man he'd never seen before outside of UNIT's files.

Tim knew their security left much to be desired, but the only way he had any desire to help them was by hacking in every now and then for updates. He'd known when the Doctor was in San Francisco -- too far to reach -- and then when he made a series of visits to London, with a different face.

This was another one again, in fewer than three years.

Clearly, the Doctor needed someone to look after him, and given that Lethbridge-Stewart had gone into a well-earned retirement --

"You shouldn't travel alone, Doctor," Tim said, and picked up his backpack. "Take me with you."

"Really, now?" The Doctor tilted his head and studied Tim.

Tim studied him right back, from the scuffed canvas sneakers to the indubitably deliberate untidiness of his hair. He seemed too young to have experienced all of the things UNIT had recorded, let alone those hinted at in "Off-World Experiences" -- the speculative folder. "Yes. You've gone through three regenerations in the last ten years. Please take me with you."

"Ten years? Is that all it's been around here?" The Doctor glanced at his watch. "You might just have a point, though it's not on your head, so I'm not entirely sure you do. And how you knew who I am I'm not sure either, but you probably ought to step inside and have a cuppa." He frowned at Tim with the expression teachers used when they were testing. "But only if you can tell me the name of my ship."

"The -- the TARDIS," Tim said. "Time and Relative Dimension in Space." He'd learned the phrase from his first dip into UNIT records, but he was afraid it wouldn't be enough.

The Doctor beamed at him. "Sharp as a tack, you are." He unlocked the door of the TARDIS. "Come in, sonny-my-lad, and tell me about yourself." 


End file.
